Word: mobutu
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...organized by President Joseph Mobutu's Mouvement Populaire Revolutionnaire, the only legal political party in the Congo. Outside the Belgian embassy in Kinshasa, it began to work up quite a head of steam for its "spontaneous anti-imperialist demonstration." Primary object was to protest the seven-week-old rebellion of the Congo's white mercenaries, who were fired by Mobutu and subsequently captured the border city of Bukavu by force. Loudspeaker trucks promised immediate satisfaction to all loyal Congolese right there in Kinshasa. Before the shouting was over, announced the sound trucks, the Belgian, French and British ambassadors...
...Belgian embassy, invaded an adjacent apartment building and mauled an American Army sergeant and his wife who were trapped inside. Then it moved on to hurl rocks at the French cultural center and the American and British embassies, loot shops and set fire to cars along the way. Before Mobutu decided that it was time for him to ask the rioters to go home, they had torn down a 35-ft.-high bronze statue of Belgium's King Albert I that had been a city landmark for years...
Party Ultimatum. In Brussels, the reaction was angry and immediate. Fearful that another anti-white bloodletting was imminent, Foreign Minister Pierre Harmel flew home from a vacation in southern France to appear on radio and television and demand that Mobutu guarantee the safety of the 40,000 Belgians who live in the Congo. Otherwise, Harmel implied, Belgium would cut off its $70 million-a-year aid program and order its citizens home, a move that could mean the virtual col lapse of all the Congo's industries, communications and civil service...
...After establishing his headquarters in Bukavu's Royal Residence Hotel, he set up a "government of public safety" headed by a Katangese captain, and made sure that 300 white civilian refugees from the fighting were escorted safely across the border into Rwanda. Then he issued an ultimatum giving Mobutu ten days in which to negotiate for peace. Among Schramme's terms: that Mobutu return democratic government to the Congo, annul the treason conviction of ex-President Tshombe (who is now in an Algerian jail awaiting extradition) and make Tshombe a member of the Cabinet...
...Kinshasa, Mobutu immediately rejected the ultimatum and said that he would "never stoop to negotiate with assassins." If he does not change his mind, warned Schramme, "I'll take measures of a greater scope. We are in a position of strength. We have shown that the Congolese National Army is incapable of defeating us. Who knows, I could even go so far as launching an offensive against Kinshasa...